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The Need for an Electoral Reform
By Ramon T. Ayco November 2007
I.
 
Introduction
Elections are integral to democratic governance. It is one of the most important ways citizens can participate in decisions that affect their lives and hold their representatives accountable for results. Through the mechanism of elections, politicians are held accountable for their actions,and are compelled to introduce policies that are reflective of and responsive to public opinion.There are three main functions of elections in a democracy. First, they are a means for people tochoose their representatives and/or leaders in legislative and executive branches of government.Second, elections are a means of choosing governments; indeed, in many (though not all) partsof the world, elections are primarily a contest between competing political parties to see who willcontrol the government. Finally, elections confer legitimacy on the political system. Especiallysince the end of the Cold War and the emergence of democratic governance around the world,elections have become an essential element in constituting a legitimate government.Elections are the paradigm of enforceable accountability: when a government fails to live up tothe needs and desires of the people, the people can throw it out of office. No form of accountability is more direct, no form of participation is more egalitarian.But elections cannot be equated to democracy as a whole. Building a democracy is much morethan regular, competitive and transparent elections, vital as these are. What happens before andafter elections is equally important, as is the capacity of voters to demand that electoral processesare translated into genuine democratic gains for the population.In the Philippines, there is a popular saying that
 
“there are two types of candidates in elections:those who win and those who get cheated by their opponents.” Nobody, or very few candidates,are courageous enough to admit that they lost in election, and they are capitalizing on the factthat election in the country is really fraudulent.The past 60 years of the Philippine history already has a reputation of electoral fraud, proven or otherwise. It is just that no one ever gets caught or punished. Analysts assert that the people havealways been desensitized to their politicians cheating during elections. Accordingly, peoplegenerally doubt their leaders' mandates. The people are often suspicious of the winners,especially in close poll results, but do nothing. Constituents generally allow their leaders,assuming proven acts of cheating, to get away with it until the scandal erupted.One of the recent incidents of electoral fraud in the Philippines involves no other than PresidentGloria Macapagal Arroyo (PGMA) in May 2004 elections in the well known “Hello Garci
 
Scandal”.
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And just like any other politicians accused of cheating, she just simply denied doingit. What she only admitted was the fact that she was really the one in the cassette tape talking toformer Commission on Election (COMELEC) Commissioner Virgilio Garcillano. And for this,she just made a televised public apology saying “I’m Sorry!”. And that’s all.Whether PGMA is guilty or not -- which is one of the principal bases for a series of impeachment cases against her -- the need for electoral reforms in the Philippines is real.
II.
 
Historical Background
Elections and other democratic institutions were primarily imported into the Philippines fromWestern models.During the Spanish colonialism, Spain introduced elections and municipal elections, not with theinterest of democracy but rather to impose order. By supporting one of the political candidates,they increased factionalism, subtly teaching Filipinos to use government for personal ends not public good (Paredes, 1989).The emergence of institutions such as constitutional law, the secret ballot, the referendum, political parties and legislature in the Philippines was a product of American colonialism. Hence,colonialism became the defining force in the emergence of democracy in the Philippine nation-state. The Philippines as a conquest colony underwent political development predicated on theinterest, influence and power of the colonial authorities (Paredes, 1989: 2-4).After establishing total control of the Philippines by 1901, the American colonizers governedtheir newly acquired territory through the appointive Philippine Commission under thesupervision of the United States governor general. The commission performed both executiveand legislative functions, with token Filipino participation, until 1907.The Philippine Commission enacted Acts No. 82 and No. 83, providing for the organization of municipal and provincial local governments. A limited electorate (only male residents of municipality who own properties worth at least P500) was given the right to elect the municipal president (mayor), vice-president and the council. Provinces were governed by a three-member  board, headed by a governor who was indirectly elected by the municipal councilors in the province. Thus, the provincial elections of 1902, 1904 and 1906 were reflections of municipal politics (De Guzman, Reforma and Panganiban, 1988; Franco, 2000; Hutchcroft, 2000).Consequently, ‘from local elections in 1901, to legislative elections in 1907, and presidentialelections in 1935, the Americans built electoral politics from the municipality upwards, therebyentrenching provincial families in both local and national offices’ (McCoy, 1994: 12).
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The scandal involves incumbent presidentGloria Macapagal-Arroyo, who allegedly rigged the2004 national  electionin her favor. It began in June2005when audio recordings of a phone call conversation between President Arroyo and then Election Commissioner Virgilio Garcillano allegedly talking about the rigging of the 2004national election results, were released to the public. The "Hello Garci" tapes suggested that Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo used members of the Commission on Elections, Philippine National Police, and the Armed Forces of thePhilippines to manipulate the result of the 2004 presidential elections.
 
Philippine party politics, at that period, was characterized by clientelist interactions between theFilipino politicians and their American colonial patrons. Characteristic of most colonial regimes,the Americans implemented a system of indirect administration utilizing dependable nativeclients. The measure of success for an American colonial official was their ability to cultivateand manipulate effective local clients in implementing American policies. Thus, electoralcampaigns were neither venues for the discussion of social issues nor mass appeals for voters, but negotiations between national political personalities and the provincial landowning elites(Grossholtz, 1964; Tancangco, 1988; Paredes, 1989).
Elections in the Commonwealth
The 1935 constitution that established the Philippine Commonwealth provided for a presidentialform of government patterned on the United States model. The constitution originally introduceda unicameral National Assembly, but an amendment in 1940 re-established the bicamerallegislature, which remained until 1972 (Hartmann, Hassall and Santos, 2001). The right of suffrage was granted to all Filipinos who were: (1) 21 years and above; (2) able to read andwrite English or Spanish; and (3) residents of the Philippines for at least one year and of themunicipality in which they proposed to vote for at least six months prior to the date of theelections. It also provided for the extension of the right of suffrage to women. By 1939, allexisting election laws were consolidated into an Election Code (Commonwealth Act No. 357)that empowered the secretary of the interior to supervise all types of election. However, for the purpose of insulating the electoral process from partisan politics, a constitutional amendmentwas passed and approved in a plebiscite to create an independent Commission on Elections(COMELEC) (Tancangco, 1988: 82-83). Five elections were held in the Commonwealth period:the presidential and legislative elections of 1935; the local elections of 1937; the legislativeelections of 1938; the local elections of 1940; and the presidential and legislative elections of 1941.American colonial rule left the country with a weak central state during the Commonwealth era.It had to contend with dispersed local centres of power that possessed varying degrees of autonomy all over the archipelago. At the heart of these power centres were the landed eliteswho had the uncanny ability to survive both war and peasant rebellion. The introduction of anelectoral system for electing public officials provided the landed elite with a venue to consolidateand expand their power. The landed elites or ‘oligarchs’, through their control of the Congress,transformed themselves into a national oligarchy that successfully repulsed the government’sattempts at land reform. Thus, democratization of economic resources in the country was prevented (Rivera, 1994: 112-114).
Elections after the granting of independence
 
When the Americans granted independence to the Philippines, the rivalry between the two parties — the Liberal Party (LP) and the Nationalista Party (NP)
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— dominated Philippine
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D
uring the American colonial period, there were two major parties – the Nacionalista Party (NP) and theProgresista Party (PP). The NP was formed on 12 March1907 as a merger of several nationalist movements andorganizations pushing for Philippine independence. The PP was formerly the Partido Federalista – the country’sfirst political party organized in 1900 by a group of prominent, mostly Manila-based ilustrados to push for the
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